Recalled
by ArokenHalo
Summary: Soldiers with specific skill sets aren't ever really Reserve. Steve finds himself temporarily back on Active Duty, dealing with terrorists, kidnappings and a homesickness he hadn't expected. 5-0, meanwhile, are having problems of their own.
1. Prologue

The call, when it came, didn't surprise Steve.

Even coming though it did at 3:48 AM on a Sunday didn't give him pause. Odd hours weren't something he considered odd anymore; he woke at the first ring, was fully alert by the second and reaching to answer it at the third. That it was from the governor's office didn't surprise either nor did, once he'd listened to the message, the reason for the call. No, what surprised Steve was his reaction to it.

* * *

Steve McGarrett had something of a complicated relationship with Hawai'i.

He loved it, of course, how could he not? He loved the tight-knit people, who were warm and strong and intensely protective. He loved the culture, with all the fullness of its history and embedded idiosyncrasies. He loved the islands themselves, had spent three summers as a teenager playing adventure guide for tourists and feeling like a thief for being paid to hike and ride and swim and camp and go everywhere to do everything in the most beautiful place on the planet.

He enjoyed being back again, and for more than just the opportunity to reacquaint himself with the idea of staying in one place long enough for a month to change. He liked the sensation of walking down familiar streets, of waking up every morning to the sound of waves falling over sand. He was glad for the chance to keep it safe and peaceful.

But it wasn't home anymore. At least, it hadn't been for a long time.

For all that Danny got the worst of it (not completely undeserved what with wearing ties, hating pineapple and apparently being allergic to sunlight and surfing), Steve was well aware he was haole, too. He spoke the language, knew his way around local customs, had even been born on the islands, but light skin and blue eyes meant he was still a foreigner. It hadn't mattered growing up, though, because maybe kids teased and bullied but Steve knew where home was. It wasn't anything but blue skies all year long and a house with the ocean for a backyard.

And it had stayed home, even after everything changed, when the family gained a mother-sized hole and a father-sized ghost. It was home when Mary Ann screamed loud enough to drown out the waves and began to disappear for hours then days then weeks at a time; when Dad responded by working longer hours and never talking; when sports and friends and hiking the ridges failed to calm anything in his heart anymore. It was home until it wasn't, and when Steve left (first to Annapolis and then to the rest of the world) he hadn't felt like he was leaving something behind.

It didn't change when he'd returned or when he'd decided to stay. He was comfortable and sometimes happy, but there weren't any roots there, except the old ones which were too rotted and didn't fit.

* * *

That was what he'd thought anyway. So when, seven months after coming back, the call came asking him to leave again, Steve was surprised, almost shocked, at the way his chest seemed to tighten around his heart.

He replied, "Yes, sir" anyway because the request wasn't unexpected and told them he'd be there in an hour and a half before hanging up. He dressed in the darkness with the casual unthinking efficiency gifted to military, law enforcement and new parents at four in the morning. It wasn't a uniform he'd had cause to wear since he'd been back, not the service dress blues he'd worn for his father and for Mekka and for Kono, but the BDUs that had been kept neatly folded on a shelf in his cabinet. He tucked the bottoms of his pants into his boots and tied the laces tightly before reaching for duffel bag that sat, already packed and ready, at the back of his closet. He hefted it with ease and moved silently through the house.

The neighborhood was quiet and fairly secluded, but he checked windows and doors as he moved through the house (the "champ" toolbox, in particular, went into the bolted footlocker his father had kept in the garage).

Steve threw his bag into the passenger seat and climbed into his truck, shaking his head when he almost turned right at the main road, toward 5-0 headquarters, instead of left for Wheeler Air Force Base. He felt a brief frisson on surprise again when he realized he was wondering about how to let his team know where he was. Logically, he was aware that he didn't exactly have time for an explanation and that Governor Jameson was going to debrief them when they got in on Monday.

Abruptly, he pulled off into the shoulder and reached for his phone. He couldn't justify calling them, not at oh-dark-thirty on a Sunday, when they'd gone sleepless and hungry the past week in order to close the Akehele case, not when it wasn't exactly urgent. Still, something itched between his shoulder blades at the thought of not telling them personally. So, an email seemed the best compromise (Kono checked hers with all the enthusiastic regularity of a rookie, Chin's was connected to his phone so he'd get a _new mail_ update in the morning, Danny still hated email and all its unholy ilk and would just have to hear it from the other two).

He managed a quick message, paused for a second and then added a P.S. before getting back on the road.

* * *

Author's Note: I know that the first chapter reads a little slow, but the next chapter will have more action, I hope. Thanks for reading.


	2. Chapter 1

For Danny, weekends usually fell into one of two categories: wonderful (when he had Grace) and whatever (when he didn't). Grace Days were filled with emergency shave ice runs, outings to parks and beaches, movies about singing animals, and a constant stream "Leilani's my partner for history and I'm not going to be friends with Diana anymore and Mark keeps stealing my pencils and are you sure I can't have a puppy, daddy, I'll take really good care of it". The other Saturdays and Sundays, in comparison, were spent in a kind of bemused listlessness.

It wasn't that he was a workaholic who could think of nothing to occupy himself but the job, though he certainly could be that, so much as a general lack of anything to do. There were no repairs or home improvement projects to undertake because, on the first, he lived in an apartment that ostensibly had a super to take care of that and, on the second, any "improvement" to be made necessitated tearing the entire structure down and starting anew. None of the perennial tourist attractions interested him in any way but how to keep his daughter from finding out about them. Sometimes he'd find a pickup game to join or, more recently, spend it dodging Kono's increasingly forceful invitations to teach him how to surf or working with Chin and Steve on engines but mostly, he slept, ordered out and did absolutely nothing.

This particular Sunday, however, felt more well-deserved than usual, and Danny got up with a smile even though it wasn't a Grace Day. The previous week had given him seven hours of sleep for every thirty-six, so he felt no guilt at waking up at nine and dozing until ten-thirty, didn't even glare the indecent amount of sunlight streaking through his window, considering it was still winter.

He made coffee first. It said something about a person when, in the process of furnishing what will be a new home, thoughts of a coffeemaker came before most everything else. But Danny was a self-aware person, and he fully acknowledged that caffeine was an integral part of his not killing stupid people periodically. He'd drunk the first cup and was making headway on the second when he suddenly heard a polyphonic rendition of the theme from Charlie's Angels trilling from the desk.

"What the…" A scowl formed on his face when he grabbed his cell and saw the name on the display. "McGarrett, you miserable, son of a—" he grumbled as he accepted the call. "Yes, Governor Jameson, this is Detective Williams…no, ma'am…yes, I'm available…can I ask for what reason we'll be…yes, ma'am, I can be at the office in an hour." He hung up, briefly forgetting to plot Steve's slow death for messing with his phone _again,_ in favor of contemplating what had to be some huge and horrible new case if the governor was giving it to them so closely behind their last one.

Danny drained the rest of his coffee with the unsettling feeling that he'd need it, weekend or not.

* * *

When Kono got to 5-0 headquarters, her cousin was already there and she was glad for it. "Did you get the email?" she asked as the glass doors closed behind her.

Chin, seated at the center table, turned at her approach. "Yeah, I got it. How you feeling?"

"I—" She shrugged, pursing her lips. "I guess I just wasn't expecting it."

"You're thinking regular Reserve, cuz. But Steve's a SEAL, he wouldn't be SELRES or IRR."

"No, I know." There were enough military bases on the island to ensure that she was friends with at least one person in every branch, so Kono was well-acquainted with many of the finer points of the service. Selected Reserve and Individual Ready Reserve were, as the titles suggested, the reserve units of the Navy (active and non), but SEALs were handled differently because they didn't really have reserves; they just transferred into Navy Special Warfare Command, which weren't deployed. "But I thought they couldn't be activated without a special order."

"It's been different since the war started, you know that," Chin said. His eyebrows drew down faintly. "Especially if I'm right about which Team he was in."

"What do you mean—" Kono paused as she caught sight of Danny walking down the glass corridor. "Do you think he knows yet?"

"Definitely not," Chin said. "He doesn't have a computer in his apartment and he hates everything in his phone that isn't just the phone."

"Yeah," Kono agreed, having come to a similar conclusion. "I vote that you get to tell him all about it, cuz."

Danny walked in before Chin could say anything, so he replied with a brief, baleful stare in her direction. "Hey," Danny said, "what's up?"

"You haven't checked your email today, have you?" Chin asked.

"What? No. Why the hell would I want to torture my thumbs on a tiny word pad while simultaneously torturing my eyes on an equally tiny screen? On my off day? I wouldn't have been touched the thing if the governor hadn't called. What are you doing?"

As Danny talked, Chin had been typing something on the computer. "Steve sent an email early this morning. I'm pulling it up on the screen."

Danny frowned, stepping forward as the short message was brought up. "'Got recalled for an op." He read aloud, his voice getting progressively more incredulous as he did. "'I'll be back when it's done. Be careful not to die or anything. –S. McGarrett.'" Blue eyes widened. "'P.S. Danno's in charge.'"

The New Jersey detective turned to look at Chin then Kono then back, mouth open, though no words were coming out. As if to compensate, his hands seemed to gesture even faster. Danny, of course, wasn't ever speechless for very long. "I don't even know which of that," he waved at the screen, "is the most ridiculous part. No, wait, actually, yes, I do. 'Be careful not to die or anything'?" he said, waving expansively at the offending line and, presumably, the man who'd typed it. "Because, since he decided to get me shot within an hour of knowing him, I've only been in more firefights and car chases and potential police brutality lawsuits than the entire Newark Police Department in five years, and _now_ he's worried about safety. As if he's not the one with a target painted on the back of his head." He shook his head. "What the hell? So he's gone? The Navy can just give a little tug and reel him back? Like some sort of demented yo-yo."

"Apparently," Chin said. "The thing is, when I was talking to the governor, I got the feeling that this was a surprise to her. Maybe only because I already knew why she was calling, but she seemed kind of irritated and taken aback."

"You mean like us?" Danny asked.

"Yeah, I got the same vibe," Kono said. "But what difference does it make?"

"Well, if it didn't come through the governor, that means that Steve's op—"

"Can we just say 'mission', please?" Danny interjected. "I know it makes him sound more 007-ish, but I'm seriously not dealing with any more code words than absolutely necessary at this point."

"Sure." Despite the situation, Chin felt a moment of amusement. "Anyway, like I was saying, if the governor didn't know about this before it happened, then either the mission came up fast or it's something really covert or both."

"Okay."

"In either case, Steve shouldn't have told us about it at all," he said. He pointed to the two bare lines on the screen. "Even that much."

Kono hadn't considered that, but she nodded. "So, when Governor Jameson calls, which should be soon, we're going to be really surprised to be short one member."

"Right."

They spent the few minutes before the governor's call studiously not thinking about the kinds of situations which might require government-level secrecy and urgent middle of the night departures. When she did call, it was to the office's main line and Kono, who had been the closest, immediately put it on speaker.

_"I assume you're all there."_

There was a pause wherein the three of them stared at each other until Chin pointed to the line on the computer screen which read: 'P.S. Danno's in charge'. Danny scowled but answered anyway, "Yeah, Governor, we're here."

_"I'm sorry for calling you all here on a Sunday, but I felt it best to relay this news with you all at once. Lt. Cmmr. McGarrett has been temporarily reassigned to the US Navy, so 5-0 will have to operate without him."_

"What's going on, ma'am?" Danny asked, not really having to feign confusion and surprise because the news was still pretty new to him.

_"He's been tapped for a military operation, Detective." _

"Do you know for how long?"

_"All I can say is that it will not be permanent. Any other details are not mine to share. If a case comes up, feel free to request extra manpower from HPD, until then," _the voice on the other end of the line softened, a little. _"try to enjoy your time off."_

"Thank you, Governor."

_"Good bye."_

"Well, that was helpful." Danny scowled. "The 'other details are not mine to share' is just a euphemism for classified, isn't it?"

"It's probably true," Chin said. "There's no reason she would know anything about it."

Danny turned serious, though, when he asked, "Are you okay with my being lead until Steve gets back? You're technically senior detective, so I don't know why he—"

But Chin's already shaking his head. "'A'ole pilikia, brah. I told him to."

"What?"

"Too much paperwork and bureaucracy with being the big boss," Chin said. "I told Steve as much a couple of weeks ago, after the Harmond arrest, and he said you could do it, since you love police procedure and probably wouldn't mind."

"'Love police procedure'? A healthy, and may I add legally-required, respect for the Miranda Rights and the mental aptitude to remember them well enough to recite them to the people I have the dubious pleasure of arresting does not translate to a desire to spend two hours at the end of every day writing reports and signing everything in triplicate. And, just to be clear, Steve doesn't even really do. He just lets it build up on his desk and stares at it, every so often, as if he has no idea how it got there or what to do with it."

"So do what he does," Kono suggested.

"You mean nothing? Besides shoot people and ram cars into boats and cause more paperwork demanding justifiable cause for all the shooting people and ramming things, which he probably doesn't even have? Do that?"

The sheer weight of Danny's diatribes was sometimes enough to crush lesser human beings but Kono, who'd actually been impressed since day one with his ability to verbally juggle topics while using them as weapons, only shrugged. "Yeah, let Steve deal with it when he gets back."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because I _am_ a cop." Danny blew out the confession like a frustrated breath. "I can't Rambo my way out of things like due process and proper procedure. I actually have to do it."

"You know, I see him more along the lines of John McClane," Chin said thoughtfully.

Danny rolled his eyes. "Funny. That wasn't what I—" He stopped short then said, "McClane? Really? Though I suppose I can see the whole terrorist-fighting, there's-no-such thing-as-pain, ooh-I-bet-I-can-make-that-explode maverick crime-fighter resemblance." He thought about hanging suspects from a roof and anything involving the unwilling being put into a shark cage. "Okay, I'd give you McClane, but I am not going to be Al Powell, so, no, we're sticking with Rambo."

Chin stood up and patted Danny's shoulder, chuckling. "Don't worry about it, brah. Maybe Steve'll be back before we get another case and you won't have to worry about it."

Danny's eyes flickered away and his jaw clenched. "Yeah, he'd better be." He gave an annoyed huff and made to head toward his office. "I'm not doing any more paperwork than I've got."

"He's worried," Kono said softly, watching him go. She didn't bother to comment about his staying to work, despite the fact that it was Sunday, because she knew that she wasn't going to be heading home either.

Chin leaned a hip against the table and met her gaze firmly. "Yeah, we all are."

Kono looked down. It wasn't something that was usually a problem for her, admitting concern. She was confident enough in herself, and in her family, not to be self-conscious in that way. But doing so somehow felt different in headquarters, where she felt strongest a desire to prove herself equal and capable to the men that she worked with, where she was used to being seen in her capacity as an officer of the law (rookie or not). Kono looked up when Chin grabbed her hand and gave it a light squeeze. She swallowed and nodded.

"We all are, Kono," he repeated. He carried his own concern with an acceptance that made her feel like she was sixteen again and caught trying to sneak a friend's cigarette, trying too hard for the wrong image of maturity.

She squeezed his hand back. "Yeah, we are. But the boss-man'll be fine."

* * *

Steve crouched, silent and unmoving, hidden in the dense undergrowth. Before him, the compound rose from marsh and jungle like a fortress, with foot-thick walls draped with concertina wire, topped by cameras, sentries and M240B machine guns, with a solid forty feet of cleared kill space until the cover of the tree line. He thought what he knew was there, but couldn't see, of bastardized versions of the Russian POMZ-2M (somehow nastier than regular fragmentary mines because of the way people tended to experiment on blast size and shrapnel) buried every two feet, of detonators mounted even within the walls themselves and inside the grounds.

Not impenetrable, but close. Any attack would have to be direct, fully confrontational because the security measures were made to alert as well as defend, and Steve guessed that the mobile force inside, the soldiers, were meant to be the real protection.

He finished a preliminary scan of the outer defenses and slowly held up a hand. Unseen and positioned in various places behind his location, the rest of the SEALs were waiting on him. He gave the order for them to maintain position. He could do this part alone.

Boots making no noise on the soft, damp moss which seemed to grow on any stationary surface, he circled around, mapping it out and making notes in his head. Nearly on the other side of the compound, where the looming structures looked even more defensible, not having any gates to contend with, Steve found what he had hoped he wouldn't.

Couched right up against the bottom of the outer wall was a narrow, dug pit. A moment longer and Steve found a tree, right at the edge of the clearing, which bore what looked like a loop of rope burn on several branches, the long abraded patterns resembling the filament twists of black nylon rope.

Steve didn't need any more. He headed back to the others and easily found Petty Officer Prairie Fire, whose service call sign came from being the pride of the Kansas plains and irretrievably redheaded, the designated point-man and gave the order to fall back.

Once the team assembled, ten miles out, and headed back to the closest Army firebase. "Get Intelligence on the comm." he ordered once they were back and it was two minutes of grinding static and garbled lines before he was called on for his report.

_"Well, Lt. Cmdr. McGarrett? Have you appraised the situation?"_

"Yes, sir, we've just returned from the initial reconnaissance."

_"And?"_

"There's no doubt in my mind, sir," Steve said. "It's him."

* * *

A/N: I am unbelievably grateful to everyone who reviewed or put this story on alert, though I must admit your interest is slightly intimidating. XD

Thanks to Ice Cube1 and Alamo Girl who pointed out a problem in the Prologue, it ought to be okay now. If you see a mistake-canonical, logistical, grammatical, whatever-let me know so I can try to fix it or something.

I'm not entirely too knowledgeable about the military, despite my interest in it, so please take any descriptions here with a grain of salt. The same goes for that little bit of Hawaiian (if you speak it and I butchered something, I'm sorry).

Thanks again for reading.


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